Leader Orientation

After 62 hours on a train and a handful more in a car, I arrived in Portland, ME this past Saturday for 2.5 days of leader orientation. Being reunited with the other 3 leaders I met back in March at Leader Retreat
reinforced just how excited I am to spend to summer with Becca, Jeff, and Emily. Joined by our fearless program director, Natalie, we didn't waste any time getting down to business. The past few days have been a whirlwind of finalizing trip logistics, going for a practice ride, stocking up on supplies and food, practicing orientation presentations, learning how to drive (and back up) a 15-passenger van with a packed trailer hitched to it, and more. There has been a lot of learning and laughs, and very little sleep or wasting of time.

Cradling our bread babies while food shopping 

The riders (all 29 of them) arrive today for the start of rider orientation, and it kind of feels like the first day of camp - lots of nervous/excited butterflies and anticipation in meeting the people I'll spend the next 80 days with. We'll spend today and tomorrow doing icebreakers, doing a shakedown ride, going over what a day in the life of Bike & Build is like, safety, health/hygiene, the affordable housing cause, B & B policies, team goals and more. On Thursday we will have our first build day with Habitat for Humanity of Portland, and on Friday we'll dip our wheels in the Atlantic Ocean and hit the road. What awaits us in the remaining two and half month adventure after that? We'll find out!!

Keeping in touch: Seeing as I won't have much time to post to this blog, you can follow along with the trip route tracker found on the Bike & Build website here. I will also post pictures more frequently to my Instagram account (katyb333), which you can also see filtered onto my blog in the top right corner if you are not on the "gram". If you would like to send me a letter or package along the way, you can find mail drop dates and addresses on the Contact page.